


Missed Connections

by flyingisland



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Anal Sex, F/M, Gentle Sex, Izuo - Freeform, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 00:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6881089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shizuo had always known that Izaya was a lonely person. Maybe he just hadn’t ever considered how lonely a person could really be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed Connections

“Do you feel vulnerable like this, Shizu-chan?”

Izaya is dragging cold fingers along his exposed belly, down toward jutting hips, the flushed head of his erection, but not quite stopping long enough to give it the attention that it might be asking for.

His eyes are tiny needles prickling Shizuo’s skin. His hands are ice cubes leaving chilly trails in their wake. There’s a warm edge to his words, however, even as he’s whispering those stupid lines. Even as he’s pretending that this is nothing but a business exchange and there is no hurried thrumming deep within the thin binding of his chest. Shizuo could shatter each rib with a flick, they both know, but his hands are useless things, resting against the mattress, doing nothing to stop Izaya as soft lips caress the dip of his abdomen. They don’t even twitch when his erection finds its way into Izaya’s mouth.

He lets out a heavy breath. He watches Izaya touch him through the blue hues of his glasses. He’s naked, except for them. That was the agreement.

He’ll give Izaya his everything, but not the thoughts behind his eyes. He hasn’t earned them just yet.

“Has anyone else ever seen you like this before?”

Oily fingers are dipping inside of him. Wet lips pull back from the flushed head, ignoring the string of precum that dribbles onto his chin, a smile playing in his eyes even as he’s struggling so desperately to keep his composure.

Shizuo’s figured him out anyway. He knows that this is all that he’s ever wanted.

The series of events which have led to him to this very point in time are hazy at best. He’d collapsed behind a random bar, drunk and alone, battered from a booze-blurred fight and just looking for a quiet place to rest. Izaya must have found him, must have taken pity on his sorry state, because he’d found himself, barely awake, fading in and out of consciousness as someone had tended to the tiny cuts littered about his body.

He remembers choking out threats, but doing nothing to see them through. He remembers howling, throat rough and words way too loud in Izaya’s empty apartment, _“Just fucking kill me, you stupid fucking louse! Just get it over with!”_

And maybe Izaya had laughed. Maybe he had paused momentarily, wondering why he hadn’t drawn a knife along Shizuo’s throat when he’d had the chance.

He’d replied in a soothing tone, soft eyes in the blaring light and fingers pressing only as hard as they needed to into Shizuo’s numb skin _, “Oh Shizu-chan, you really don’t understand anything at all.”_

Traffic had bustled far down below them, muted in Izaya’s expensive high-rise apartment. Impersonal and clean, Izaya’s personal space reflected nothing of what he might have been feeling, but somehow, Shizuo had felt nonetheless.

_“Such a stupid monster, you really haven’t figured it out after all of this time?”_

Blackness had stained his vision. He’d tipped his head back, murmuring another threat, waiting for the feeling of a blade slicing his skin that would somehow never come.

_“I guess you won’t remember this in the morning, will you?”_ Izaya had cooed, voice a lull of something so gentle that Shizuo wasn’t sure if he was even talking to the same person, _“Then I guess I’ll let you in on a little secret—“_

He’s not sure if the next memory was a dream or not. He’d felt a warmth pooling in the depths of his chest, drunkenness getting the better of him like so many times before, and he’d heard, right as the hands of sleep had dragged him from that bright and dizzy world—

_“I’ve loved you all along.”_

And so, he’d ventured back to that apartment three days later. He’d mulled over the idea of Izaya wanting him. He’d talked to Celty about debt, about owing a person a favor in return of kindness and if letting them have what they wanted might have been worth giving up a little more than he was comfortable with.

_‘That depends, Shizuo,’_ she’d typed, cocking her helmet to the side in a rehearsed show of curiosity, _‘It depends on what this person did for you, and what you’re thinking about doing to pay them back. Inconveniencing yourself for someone else isn’t a bad thing if it isn’t something big.’_

He hadn’t been in the mood to talk about it further, so he’d stopped talking altogether. He was sure Celty would understand.

Even if she didn’t, he wasn’t going to tell her anything else.

He’d found himself at Izaya’s doorstep later that afternoon, finger on the buzzer, tilting his head back to look up at so many glass windows. He’d thought that he could pick out exactly which one was Izaya’s, but the sun against the building obscured everything but the reflection of the city streets. The apartments, each identical, each so open and empty and filled with generic things that were overpriced if only so the owners could feel better than everyone else—and he’d wondered if Izaya ever wanted to add personality to his own home. He’d wondered if maybe Izaya felt lonely when he looked around at his barren walls, at the empty halls, at all of the places where normal people would have family photos and he had nothing but open space.

Izaya’s voice crackling through the speaker had stopped him from losing himself further in his thoughts. He’d looked up into the security camera. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets.

And Izaya had let him in.

They’re sprawled out on Izaya’s gigantic bed. The sheets smell like laundry detergent, like no one has actually slept here in a few days. Izaya is roving eyes and hands alike over Shizuo’s body. He’s drinking him in, making small comments. He’s touching Shizuo as though he is a fragile thing, as though if he presses down too hard, he might find himself nodding awake, alone at his desk with an aching neck and a pile of unfinished paperwork.

Shizuo had always known that Izaya was a lonely person. Maybe, he realizes, he just hadn’t ever considered how lonely a person could really be.

“Am I the only one who has ever touched you like this?” Izaya purrs, ghosting his fingers along the shaft of Shizuo’s erection, pausing only to smile at the catching of Shizuo’s breath at the sensation of it, “Is this your first time doing this with anyone else?”

He doesn’t reply for a long moment. He’d told himself as he’d travelled from Ikebukuro to Shinjuku—a long journey that he’d nearly turned back three times during—that he wasn’t going to speak. He wasn’t going to cave under the weight of Izaya’s words. He wasn’t going to give Izaya ammunition for when all of this inevitably decided to blow up right in his face.

But finally, he allows the words to leave him. A huff of air. The softest hint of a voice.

“Yes.”

And Izaya falters then, because maybe he hadn’t expected for Shizuo to speak either. Or maybe he couldn’t have imagined Shizuo giving away his first time to a sneaky bastard who definitely doesn’t deserve it.

Shizuo is surprised too, even three days after making the decision. But Izaya loves him, apparently. No one has ever loved him before. He can’t be picky, even if the mere thought of Izaya sends dread skittering like electricity over his skin. Even if the mention of Izaya’s name alone causes every vein beneath his skin to dilate with adrenaline, to bulge out and urge him forward into a fight.

Izaya’s eyes are wide only long enough for Shizuo to notice. Something floats up near the surface of his lop-sided grin. Something deeper, darker, maybe even vulnerable and needy. There’s a hint of color on his cheeks. There’s a pulse skyrocketing against Shizuo’s skin.

And he laughs, low and guarded and just begging for Shizuo to believe that none of this really matters to him, that it’s all a ploy and not two attention-starved freaks finally caving in to the weakness of their own wants and needs.

He’s pressing himself inside, stretching Shizuo’s walls, burying himself to the hilt and biting off the final cords of that laugher. He’s kissing Shizuo on the lips, combing shaking fingers through his hair.

Shizuo looks up, he watches Izaya moving in and out of him through the safety of his glasses.

And he pulls him downward into a kiss.

Izaya lets him stay the night after they’re done. He gives him money for a cab. He smokes three cigarettes in Izaya’s bed the next morning before he leaves for work.

They pretend that nothing happened, they don’t want to talk about it ever again.

At least, Shizuo doesn’t.  


* * *

 

  
The day begins like any other. Shizuo awakens, he eats breakfast, drinks a bottle of milk. He washes his face, brushes his teeth. He checks his roots in the mirror, clicking his tongue at the dark browns inching their way into the blond. He’ll have to stop by the store on his way home from work tonight. He’ll have to stay up for an extra hour messing with the smelly dye and the irritating prickling along his scalp.

He gets dressed, pockets his phone, his wallet, and a carton of cigarettes. He grabs his keys and locks his door on the way out. He nods to his terrified neighbor, runs a hand through his hair, avoids looking at his reflection in the windows on his way out into the streets.

And the morning melds into the afternoon, and afternoon slinks slowly into the evening. He and Tom-san collect debts. He roughs up more men than he probably has to. They eat lunch at a fast food restaurant and dinner at a small diner at the edge of the district.

He hasn’t thought about his encounter with Izaya since he walked out the door over a week ago. There are no new texts on his phone, no missed calls. There are no love letters in his mailbox or skywriting begging for his hand in marriage adorning the sky. He tells himself that this is a good thing. He convinces himself that he’ll be better off without another headache, without just another annoying thing piled up on his long list of stressors just waiting to push him over the edge.

Izaya’s name is already circled in red at the top of that list. The biggest headache, the worst of the stress. He’s already the most annoying thing that Shizuo has ever encountered, and so, it wouldn’t be fair to all of the other sorry idiots just waiting to get punched if Izaya took up too much of his time. It wouldn’t be right to give him too many spaces.

So he tries to forget that any of that ever happened.

Tom-san asks him if he’s feeling okay. He moves as though he might press a hand against Shizuo’s forehead, but stops himself. Shizuo isn’t even sure if a move like that would piss him off, and neither of them are willing to find out. Tom-san lowers his hand, strains a laugh.

“You’ve seemed a little on edge all week,” he says, casual if only to sound as though he hasn’t been working himself up to asking since he noticed Shizuo’s odd behavior however many days ago, “Are you feeling sick? Do you need to take some time off?”

Shizuo shrugs. They’re walking and smoking, wasting a few minutes together before they go their separate ways for the night. The day has passed in the peaceful sort of monotony that he loves, that he cherishes above anything else these days, and right as Tom-san is wandering out of sight and he’s dragging himself back toward his own apartment, his quiet is so expectedly disrupted.

He didn’t think that any gangs were stupid enough to mess with him anymore, but he was wrong. A new gang, a new turf, a new set of teeth to knock in as a group of men swing baseball bats and heavy chains blindly in his direction. It’s frustrating at best. His clothing tears, and then it’s infuriating. His blood is staining his last clean uniform, and then it’s war.

Instead of stopping by the convenience store for hair dye, he changes course for Shinra’s. A bad end to an otherwise pleasant day. He shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.

However, when he finds himself standing in Shinra’s apartment entrance, he _is_ surprised to find that he’s not welcome inside.

“A-ah, well,” Shinra stumbles over his words, twitching as something inside of the apartment shuffles around noisily, “You… you see, I sort of have company, and—“

Shizuo shifts from foot to foot, trying not to lose his temper just yet. He’s dripping tiny flecks of blood in the entryway, looking down and watching as the redness stains the welcome mat. There’s a long gash above his brow, dribbling blood down into his eyes, and he squints through it. It doesn’t hurt, and it really isn’t a lot of blood to lose, but something had urged him to get checked out anyway. Something had told him _, ‘Shinra’s would be a good place for you to go right now.’_

Even his instincts seem to be out to get him tonight. Shinra straightens his shoulders, pushes the door just a little bit further closed. The elevator behind Shizuo hisses as it slides open. Black tendrils of smoke billow out through the open doors. He doesn’t have to turn to know that it’s Celty coming home from another job, and she’s at his side in moments anyway, thrusting her phone in his face and asking him what happened, if he’s okay, if he needs a ride to the hospital instead.

She all but shoves Shinra out of the way, tugging Shizuo inside. Everyone freezes as Shinra’s secret guest is revealed, but somehow, Shizuo isn’t shocked. He could smell Izaya from behind the door. His instincts have completely betrayed him.

Izaya smiles up at him from the couch—a big cat watching prey. Toothy and carefree, his lip is split and his eye is swollen and dark.

“I-I guess I should have expected this,” Shinra chimes in, feigning amusement as Celty grasps Shizuo by the sleeve, “Every time both of you fight, you both decide to come here, so—“

“I didn’t do that to him,” Shizuo interjects, “He’d look a lot worse than that.”

No one makes a move to speak. No one seems to have the will to move at all. They’re still until Izaya pulls himself forward, fetching a cup from the coffee table and taking a drink.

“I got here first,” he says over the rim of his glass, voice echoing inside of it as he draws his gaze across the photos on the wall, “You can wait your turn, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo huffs, but he allows himself to be pulled out onto the balcony by Celty. No one seems quite willing to question why the two of them aren’t fighting. He can see Shinra dabbing the blood from Izaya’s lip through the glass as Celty closes the balcony door. He steps toward the guardrail. He looks out over the city, drawing in a deep breath. He doesn’t understand why he didn’t attack Izaya either.

He’d considered it, in a single intake of breath. He’d thought about grabbing the nearest, heaviest thing and lobbing it at him, but as his muscles had constricted and his body had readied itself for yet another fight, all he could think about was the look in Izaya’s eyes that night—the shadows swirling in the depths of them, the soothing words on his lips. He’d thought about those hands, so light against his body. He’d thought about the way Izaya had trembled as he’d orgasmed. He’d thought about how long Izaya had sat there, face tucked into Shizuo’s shoulder, breathing wracking through him like a thousand tiny storms as he’d allowed his walls to crumbled if only for a moment.

And he’d whispered, so quiet that Shizuo wasn’t sure if he’d heard him at all.

_“Shizu-chan is so kind.”_

He still doesn’t know if that was an insult or not. He’s never considered himself to be a good person. He’s never even entertained the idea of being kind.

Celty is leaning against the railing, tapping her keyboard hurriedly and pressing her phone toward him. He reads over the text, scoffing only because she sees through him so easily. Even when he can’t quite comprehend the thoughts rattling around in his own head, Celty can thumb through him like the pages of a book.

_‘Is Izaya the person who you owed a favor?’_

He’s not sure why she’s feeling so bold. Celty is definitely not the sort of person to ask personal questions. He wonders how long that conversation has bothered her, if Shinra knows, and if maybe he has the two of them figured out as well.

He doesn’t quite answer her question. He pulls a cigarette from the carton, places it between his lips. He doesn’t light it for a long time, just enjoys the feeling of it hanging there. He watches the lights of cars stabbing through the night, lets out a long sigh.

“I already paid that debt.”

It’s too vague for his tastes. He’s not the sort of person to keep secrets. Even about his childhood traumas, he’s always been open. He’s told Celty all about his fears. He’s let her creep into his life, settling over him like a security blanket of smoke. He finds comfort in knowing that she knows these things about him, but for some reason, this isn’t like everything else. He understands that she and Shinra probably sleep together. They probably do those sorts of things all the time.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, but somehow, it is.

She doesn’t ask him anything else. She sits still for a long time, watches the city with him. She taps her fingers against the railing. They fall into a comfortable silence.

And only when he feels the final jitters of anger fading away, does Shinra slide open the balcony door.

Izaya is in the kitchen when Shizuo steps through the threshold. He’s refilling his drink from a pitcher in the refrigerator, humming despite the gauze on his lip and the cream shining against the bruises on his face. He pretends that he’s not paying attention, but Shizuo can feel those eyes drawing tiny circles on his skin as he takes a seat on the couch. He can feel them sizing him up, poking at the edges of his tattered sleeves, at the jagged tears in his dress shirt.

He isn’t sure what Izaya is looking for. He’s doesn’t know if he wants to.

Shinra lectures him as he works sutures through his skin. He explains airily between stitches, “It’s not really a cat’s gut, you see, they just call it that. They’re actually made from the intestines of sheep—“

“I don’t know that the Hell you’re talking about.”

Shizuo is fixing him with a stern look. He doesn’t care what the material is made of. The mere mention of guts has his stomach churning in discomfort.

Izaya is stifling laugher from the other room. Celty wanders silently inside, closing the door behind her. She sits across from them, seeming to study each of Shinra’s movements. Shizuo wonders if watching someone so closely might be a side-effect of loving them. He doesn’t quite catch the connotations of that right away—that Izaya is also watching him, studying him, never keeping his eyes away for so long that Shizuo completely forgets the sensation of them burning patterns in his wounds.

Shinra gets up to fetch more gauze from the bathroom. Celty follows behind, and for a brief stretch of time, it’s just Shizuo and Izaya and the space between them. He doesn’t speak until he can hear Shinra’s muffled voice through the wall. And when he does, he makes sure to train his voice to stay even. He still doesn’t trust Izaya not to throw their time together back in his face.

“So what the Hell happened to you?”

Izaya laughs for maybe the billionth time. He sets his glass down on the counter with only a quiet tap. Shizuo can hear him padding from the kitchen into the living room. He doesn’t raise his head to watch, but the smell of him draws nearer, the noise of his feet against the floor drags closer and closer until the shadow of Izaya is blocking out the light overhead. Only then does Shizuo look up, right into that smug face. He allows a scowl to tug at his lips. He stills his shaking muscles.

Izaya smiles.

“Unruly client,” he says, simple and to the point, so absent of his usual long-windedness that Shizuo knows that he’s hiding something, “And you?”

He doesn’t want to answer, mainly because he knows that Izaya is lying. He doesn’t really want to talk to him at all, and he’s not entirely sure why he started this conversation in the first place. Maybe, if he wouldn’t have spoken at all, Izaya would have stayed in the kitchen. He might have even shut up until Shinra was done. They could have went their separate ways. He could have continued forgetting what happened between them.

He could have lived on happily with his denial.

“Just a gang,” he huffs, pulling his eyes away from Izaya’s face—not particularly comfortable with the softness that he finds there, “A bunch of idiots trying to pick a fight.”

Izaya clicks his tongue. He looms over Shizuo until both of them notice Shinra’s exclamation, finally finding the gauze and bragging loudly to Celty about his ability to “complete difficult tasks”. Before he can finish rolling his eyes, Izaya is leaning in, so close that his eyelashes nearly touch Shizuo’s skin.

“I’m leaving now,” he draws out, voice so low and sultry that Shizuo can’t help but pull back just a little in his nervousness, “You know, Shizu-chan—“

His fingers are drawing along Shizuo’s jaw, forcing their gazes together, grinning like a madman as his lips inch ever-closer.

“Please stop by my place whenever you’d like.”

And they’re kissing, briefly, as softly as Shizuo remembers from before. Izaya is pulling away with hooded eyes, and only in that brief second when he’s regaining his composure and he must not comprehend how well Shizuo can read him, is it apparent—

The need there, the loneliness. Shizuo wonders if he’s composed any texts and deleted them before hitting send. He wonders if Izaya has considered love letters, if he’s looked into the price of skywriting.

Izaya’s hand is on the doorknob when Shizuo speaks, and he really doesn’t understand why he does. This could easily be the end of it. He could ignore the kiss. He could forget that any of this happened.

But he does speak, and even Izaya is startled by his words (not obviously, of course, but there’s a stiffness to his shoulders that gives him away. There’s a certain change in his breathing that Shizuo doesn’t remember getting used to, but somehow, he can tell. He can tell that he’s surprised Izaya. He can tell that neither of them were expecting his words).

“Why don’t you stop by my place instead?”

And Izaya is laughing, again, if only to cover up the shaking of his hands, and just how long it takes for him to pry the door open and leave.

He’s laughing out in the hall, in the elevator, as though Shizuo has said the funniest thing in the world.

Shizuo knows, when he gets home, Izaya will be waiting there.

And, of course, he isn’t wrong.  

**Author's Note:**

> I guess not a lot of things ended up happening in this story, but I just really like stories about characters getting together. I also have a huge soft spot for gentle Izuo, which is actually kind of uncommon... I wanted Izaya to be surprisingly thoughtful in bed, and I think maybe I ended up making him extremely lonely. 
> 
> Regardless, this story was a lot of fun to write! I haven't written a ton of Izuo, and I definitely need to consider doing more with it. 
> 
> I hope you liked it!


End file.
